What will they do concretely? They already missed a window of 2 months ago where they could have had an impact by censuring WHO, European governments and news agency that were spreading fake news in the like of "it's just a flu", "2% mortality".
The main reason it wasn't escalated sooner is that through January China was still withholding and delaying the release of data. China only confirmed that cases of human to human transmission had occurred on January 10th, and froze reporting of new cases during a party congress that ended on January 17th. So the WHO escalated this appropriately within 2 weeks of the first indications from China that this was a serious issue, despite confusing and inaccurate reporting of data.
Also about 2% mortality was an early estimate, is 20x that of most strains of flu and is comparable to that of the Spanish Flu pandemic. So those estimates were as good as they could have been at the time, and are still not far off what we're seeing happen.
[0]https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/30-01-2020-statement-on...
[1]https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
The reason doesn't matter (especially when it's waiting for China's trafficked data), the institution knew about the very likelihood of pandemia and still denied it for longer than needed. That allowed various national governments to hide their own lack of counter-measures behind a "reputable" source. And finally the media gave voice (at least in France) to a lot of "experts" that implanted a false sense of security in people's mind. Fake news all the way down, and people are now paying the price for it.
They waited until a foreigner (Thai national in Kolkata) died and only then declared an emergency, saying that nobody outside China died yet. During the declaration they sounded more like the WTO than the WHO, stating that banning flights from China would do zero to help combat the spread.
The main reason for not escalating sooner was the tremendous pressure that China applied. In the initial stages the WHO was just a mouthpiece for the Chinese CDC, who was trying to save face.
Then they waited to call a pandemic, while everyone was annoyed with them for waiting.
Just, please don't.
Yes of course the WHO was just a mouthpiece for what the Chinese were saying in the very early days, because the Chinese were the only people with the data. I understand this is frustrating, it's infuriating in fact.
It's only an international emergency when it's international. It was a declaration of fact, not a prediction about the future. The same is true of calling a pandemic, they declared it when it reached the criteria to do so. That's their job, but there seems to be a popular misconception that they should declare a pandemic when there 'might' be a pandemic, but that's not the case.
I have seen this in my professional life. I've come under pressure to declare escalated emergencies because there 'might be' a high level impact, but the agreed SLAs were to declare those only when there is actual impact. There were specific agreed processes for potential high impact issues and we followed them and they worked, but still I've had pressure to break process and escalate inappropriately, sometimes by very senior management. Fortunately my current management are pretty well informed.
Then in the same speech where they say, they will be fighting a misinformation pandemic, they say nobody outside of China has died, when a Thai national had died in Kolkuta.
All countries complained about the data sharing from China, but when asked, the WHO replied with praise and that it was not time to point any fingers.
Their main concern was for countries with a weak healthcare system, while Italy has the second-best healthcare system of Europe, and India and Africa seem better of.
> they declared it when it reached the criteria to do so.
A pandemic is defined as: "an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people." The fact was that it's an epidemic in China, Italy, South Korea, and Iran, and it is occurring in more than 80 countries, with some devastating effects. Public health experts were all talking of a pandemic correctly, while Ghebreyesus was still doing "an ongoing assessment" before making a decision.
Really, this is the level we're sinking to? The first death in India was on 12 March. The Thai case was not Coronavirus according to the hospital that treated her, she was tested negative and had been in India since November [0]. If you're aware of the case, surely you must know this?
[0]https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/01/28/no-chance-thai-...
So how many did die of Coronavirus in reality? If someone is already suffering from life threatening complications would this still count as a Covid death?
The Western official media was strongly denouncing the Chinese authorities when they were doing similar things a month or so ago in Hubei. Following that same logic I guess cancer is not the number one killer in the world, it's either the respiratory failure caused by that cancer or the related infections. But this is just Western hubris in play, as in "our numbers can never be wrong, reality be damned", and I say that as a guy from the Western "side".
But you are not following the same logic. Mine was an honest question while you seem to pick a particular (mis)interpretation.
Complications of a particular illness are part of that illness. I'm talking about adding Coronavirus complications to already life threatening ones from other diseases. HIV/AIDS are considered the killers even if it's unrelated infections that cause the actual death.
Case in point, I was in the hospital when 2 patients with less that 1% chance of surviving (cancer, no immune system) contracted an antibiotic resistant bacteria. They both subsequently died and this was attributed to the cancer not the bacteria because it was pretty much a forgone conclusion that they would have died within days regardless.
So if someone with no immune system dies of Covid-19 can you reasonably say Coronavirus killed them? Or would any minor complication have done the same? If you have a heart attack while driving but it's the crash that actually kills you the cause of death is considered the heart attack.
Yes, especially if those persons were walking freely and minding about their own lives just a week or two before, as is the case with the majority of the people that have died in Italy because of covid. I highly suspect that only a small fraction of those that died were days or weeks away from dying of other causes. To put things into perspective, from somewhere that I just read now reguarding the situation in Bergamo:
> In Bergamo, normally, about 3/4 people die every day.
> Only yesterday 50 died. 50 deaths in a single day, in a city where 3 usually die.
Bergamo is one of the best developed cities in Northern Italy and as such one of the best developed in Western Europe, I fail to see how the Germans are very different.
Then as I said, we're not talking about the same people. I'm strictly wondering how do the patients already on the death bed count. Not about more or less healthy people who are struck down by Covid-19. There are plenty of terminally ill patients in hospitals and they have a good chance of being exposed to this (there are hospitals in Italy where 70% of the personnel tested came out positive).
Multiple regimes have intentionally manipulated facts during this crisis for political reasons. What is the cost of lies?